


Forget Me Not

by Tonight_At_Noon



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Memory Loss, Romance, Secret Relationship, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 02:12:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13603386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonight_At_Noon/pseuds/Tonight_At_Noon
Summary: Caroline is in a car accident. Propelled through the windshield, she wakes up in a room full of strangers. The people who call themselves her friends struggle to find a solution to the strange, unprecedented problem afflicting her. When they discover they have no way of helping Caroline, they call upon the one person who just might be able to rescue her memories.





	Forget Me Not

**Author's Note:**

  * For [garglyswoof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/gifts).



> As I mentioned in my Tumblr message, this has been a thought rattling around in my brain for years. Long before I ever published a story on any fanfiction website. With your request for a vampire-filled gift, I have been given the push to finally write this idea down. 
> 
> Some things to note:
> 
> 1) There are no babies
> 
> 2) Basically, this, whatever it is, follows no real storyline or timeline, and I hope you can somehow find your footing
> 
> With all of that said, enjoy!

_ Sometimes, when I'm falling in my dreams/ _

_ I can feel you falling next to me/ _

_ I guess we're going everywhere together _

Rainy Girl | Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness

** * * * **

** Forget Me Not **

** * * * **

Pale darkness has fallen across the roads of chilly Mystic Falls. There is snow sprinkling from the cloudy sky, coating the ground in a slick sheet of ice. Citizens of the small town have been told to be wary on the road. Drive slowly, break softly. Be careful. Don’t die. _Please_. 

Someone has already disobeyed orders and crashed. She can see their vehicle flipped to the side. Blood soaking into the white snow, gasoline makes green and purple rainbows on the ice. Pink and white flower petals decorate the scene as if this is some cliché romantic comedy and not a real world tragedy.

There are police cars and an ambulance and a fire truck. People huddle together on the sidewalk, watching with morbid curiosity and sick fascination as two EMTs follow behind a group of firemen carrying their giant, yellow claw. The jaws of life. Will they be able to save the man, woman, child spilling hot, sticky blood on to the glittery road?

A loud roar blasts through the scene. They’ve opened the car, spread its mouth wide open. It bears its teeth to the audience.

More blood pours on the white. The road is now pink. Some might even say it is pretty. Maybe it is. 

The two EMTs take their stretcher to the cracked piece of metal, careful not to tear their gorgeous uniforms on the car’s rugged canines. One has a black bag, just in case. 

Just in case mixing with the blood is a spot of grey brain matter. Just in case there was never any hope of saving this man, woman, child. 

She hears the hushed voices of the emergency medical team. Even from how far away she is. She is proud of herself for that. 

They sound relieved. Moments later they drag a body, limp and coated in dust and glass and metallic redness, out of the broken car. Together they place him, her, them on the stretcher. Focusing, she listens for the dull heartbeat of the nearly-dead driver. It thumps in her ears to an unsteady beat. Stutters like a broken record. 

The EMTs take the victim—because that is what they are, a victim of circumstance, just another person who will now be used as a cautionary tale, a nobody talked about on the news for their tragic mistake for one morning before they disappear and are forgotten once more—and place them in the ambulance. Behind those closed doors, she can barely hear the almost non-existent heartbeat. 

She notices the medics leave behind the black bag. It is now covered in thick powder. 

It belongs on the road, the black bag. It is winter. Everything is dead in winter. 

Especially her. 

“How long do you think we’ll be trapped here?” Matt asks. 

She looks up at him, surprised for some unknown reason that he is still there. She does that a lot these days. Shuts herself so in her head that she forgets there are other people in the world. 

Looking away again, out the windshield where the ambulance’s lights dance, she fiddles with the lock on her door. 

“I don’t know,” she answers. “They look like they’re almost done.” 

She glances back at Matt’s soft face. He gives her a warm smile that looks as though it could melt all of the snow and the ice covering Mystic Falls. He has been a good friend since Elena was taken from them so soon after her own mother was. Re-established himself in her life. It’s different than with Stefan, who now goes out of his way to ignore her. 

And now that Elena is gone . . . or stuck in purgatory . . . the Scooby Gang in its entirety has been dismantled. 

Guilt eats at him, she thinks. At both Stefan and Matt. Stefan, because he is meant to protect them all. He puts too much pressure on himself. Makes himself a martyr and hides when things go bad. Matt, because he is limited in his humanness. And now his first love is gone. But they reacted to the emotion differently. One has taken to becoming her best friend and the other has decided to abandon her like so many others. 

The policemen and policewomen are sticking around. They clean up the orange-flame flares and the orange cones as the siren’s blare travels too fast, too dangerously, towards the hospital. In the light of the sparkling fire, the snow burns. Thick clumps of snowflakes pirouette in orange dresses on their way to the glassy, pink road. Caroline Forbes watches them shimmer, entranced by their movements. 

“At least the Grill won’t be too busy. The snow's probably cancelled a lot people's Valentine's Day plans,” says Matt. He taps, nervous and impatient, on the steering wheel.

“Yeah,” Caroline says distractedly, her focus remaining on the coppers as they finish clearing away the bloody scene.

But they will never be able to. Caroline can smell the hot metallic remains of pink snow—it is so harsh her veins pulse and her teeth ache. It won’t really leave until the weather warms, and even then it will soak into the grass and the cracks in the road and become one with the earth. What was it the pastor said at her mother’s funeral? _For you are dust, and to dust you will return_. She was wrong earlier. Nothing ever really dies in this world. Her own half-death taught her that. Here she is, neither living nor dead, like the flower bulbs shivering beneath the dirt in winter.

Only, unlike them, she will not triumph over death and rise from her grave in a swath of bright colours and sweet scents. She is trapped forever.

What a hellish place to be.

The police are done. The orange has disappeared, replaced by the swirling blues and reds of the lights on their cars. Their task is complete and they start waving traffic through the pink. Tires rumble and catch on the hidden ice, but they correct themselves just in time.

“What’ll you have, do you think?” Matt is anxious for their turn to move. His thumbs grow increasingly erratic and inconsistent on the steering wheel. Caroline no longer recognises any particular beat. “At the Grill, I mean.”

“As many drinks as they’ll give me,” she says absently.

“Oh.” He sounds so disappointed. Caroline continues staring out the window, pushing her own bubbling guilt down. “Well, I think I’ll have the loaded baked potato skins and those slider burger things. They’ve changed the burger recipe, and it’s heaven. Hey, do you miss food? I don’t think I’ve ever asked that. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t really taste food anymore. . .”

Matt does this. He talks. And he talks. He fills the silence with meaningless words trying to distract Caroline from the thoughts zipping around in her head like the metal, clanging sphere in a pinball machine. It never works, though she sometimes takes pity on him and pretends that it does. But tonight is not one of those nights.

That ache in her teeth is growing. It spreads like poison until her thighs, her toes, throb. And it isn’t just bloodlust. It’s so much easier to quench the thirst of bloodlust.

This is a mixture of things. Of dangerous things. Bloodlust upon true lust. The kind of lust, the kind of unmanageable desire, that keeps her awake at night, that causes her insides to tighten and burn. She feels as though she is constantly on fire. As though one of those orange-flame flares has been shoved down her throat and set alight between her ribs. 

And she is sad too. Overwhelmingly sad. Some days, she will stay in bed staring at the ceiling until the sun is swallowed by the darkness. Some nights, she will dream of her mother and awaken in her childhood bed, forced to remember her mother is no longer there. And the cycle will begin again. 

This is why Matt takes her away from her room. He doesn't like to think of her locked in her sadness, and he does all he can to cheer her up. But there is only one person who is capable of doing that, and he left her in the early hours of the morning, a single blood red rose left on the kitchen table the only keepsake from his visit.

The bastard. Always leaving her behind. But it's the rule. It's _her_ rule. One night each year, and it must be over come the next sunrise. Dangerous things would happen if he stuck around longer. But her own rule never stops her from secretly wishing he would stay. 

Does he wish the same thing? That he could stay behind and be her companion for longer than a single night? 

But of course, he would rather take her away. And he knows she will never leave this town. No matter how suffocating the air is in Mystic Falls, how trapped she feels within this supernatural bubble, she cannot leave after everything that has happened. And he cannot come back here permanently.

So, they are at an impasse. They always are. It has been that way since they met. Since he first crept inside her room and somehow managed to grasp her heart in his putrid hand. 

*** * ***

_"You're late," she says, hushed, opening the back door. The soft light from inside the house floods the back garden and illuminates the figure standing directly in front of her. She looks up at him, her dead heart rattling against her chest. Reaching out, she grabs ahold of the charms dangling around his neck and pulls him inside, hurrying to close the door lest a neighbour be watching._

_"Got caught up," Klaus says as she turns away from the door._

_She understands what he means. Stepping closer to him, hearing his sluggish blood rush through his veins (it is enough to straighten the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck), she spots several splatters of ruddy brown on his pale face. Flecks of it mar his stubble. Lines of it coil around his collar bone._

_Caroline scratches at the dots on his face, frowning. "What happened?"_

_"Someone stepped out of line. I had to deal with them."_

_He is angry. She senses frustration and fury rippling off of him. He must have wrongfully trusted this someone. He does that more and more these days. She hears news from Louisiana and knows he has been moving less cautiously. Perhaps this betrayal, whatever form it took, will be enough to remind him that he needs to be careful._

_There are constant threats to his crown. If he continues to let his guard down, one day someone will snatch it from his head. And then, perhaps, if he is weakened enough, his enemies will lock him away until they are able to overthrow him completely._

_"But all is well now?" she asks, finished removing the blood from his cheeks and beard. She keeps her hand on his rough face and moves her thumb underneath his eye._

_He unclenches his jaw and sighs, his eyes closing for the briefest of moments. "All is well."_

_"Good."_

_The games can begin. Caroline cups the back of Klaus's neck and brings their mouths together. His lips burn hers, but the pain is always welcome. It is, after all, what she craves throughout the year as she waits for him to come to her._

_It is different now than it was. When her mother was alive, she and Klaus would have to meet in an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. With no electricity or proper furniture, they would lie on a blanket in the middle of the entryway, candles lit all around their writhing bodies, offering a warm glow to the dark, musty home._

_But her mother is gone. There is no need to hide anymore._

_Inside of his mouth, Caroline tastes the sweet, hot tang of blood. She laps at the flavour like a starving animal searching for scraps. Klaus moves them away from the back door and, as if he had lived here all of his life, takes her through the halls to her bedroom with his eyes closed and his hands scrambling to remove the long dress from Caroline's body. At the same time, as they crash backwards on the bed, her body nearly bare, she tears at his t-shirt until it is only scraps hanging like one of his necklaces and tugs on his trousers._

_Klaus pulls away from her. Like a petulant child, like an addict whose bottle has been ripped from her hand, Caroline's arms go out in protest of their separation. He smiles wickedly, undoing his belt and trouser button. The sound of his zipper clicking inspires that paralysing desire her mother always warned her against._

_She remains on her back watching Klaus reveal himself to her._

_That's what this is, at its heart. It is them slowly stripping the other to their cores. It is a place in which they are unafraid to lay out their blackened souls. For as dead as they both are, they come alive when they are together. One night a year, they awaken from their slumber in the underworld and enter the land of the living. Here, on her soft, plush bed, Klaus's naked body crawling atop hers, she is a teenager once again. She is flushed with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. She is hungry and thirsty for him._

_Here, she is not a vampire forced into an enternity on this godforsaken planet. She is not the broken supernatural creature her friends have come to know her as._

_Klaus takes all of that away from her. He makes her human again. And it is probably stupid of them to continue this tradition, but the threat of being caught or the threat of attachment has never frightened them as much as it should._

_"I've missed you," he admits, kissing down her throat._

_Caroline gasps as his sharp teeth graze her pulse point. He has never said such a thing before, and his confession makes Caroline's dully beating heart beat even faster._

_"I've missed you, too," she says. Her hands coil in his soft, barely-there curls._

_Klaus, removing his mouth from her chest, looks into her eyes. There is a glint of satisfaction in his stare. He moves upward, leaving a burning kiss on her lips before devouring her once again._

*** * ***

Blinding, searing lights capture Caroline's attention and pull her instantly from her own head. She hadn't even known they had started moving again. She tenses, calling out to Matt as the truck starts to swerve on the road. He tells her to hold on to something. Panic rides his voice. His hands rotate the steering wheel this way and that, and the car jerks and swings as it approaches the light. And then there is a crash. There is a harsh sound of metal on metal. Of crunching glass. Caroline lifts out of her seat and feels crooked teeth ripping at her scalp, her shoulders, her stomach, and she lands far from the truck in the snow.

And for the first time since Katherine Pierce unknowingly turned her, she feels cold.

*** * ***

She hears distant beeping. The noise echoes in her empty mind and begs her to open her eyes. But she doesn't want to. She is tired and wants only to sleep. But then there is a voice, too, and she has no choice—she opens her stinging eyes to find herself in a hospital room. White walls surround her. Glancing down at her right arm, she sees she is hooked up to an IV. Wrapped around her finger is a plaster. Something pokes through, and she knows its purpose is to monitor her heartbeat. Only, she has no heartbeat. Not really. 

She shouldn't be there. Anxiety tethers itself to her and she sits up, but something stops her from being able to leave the bed.

A man is beside her, clutching her hand. 

"Caroline," the man says. His blue eyes are calming, and Caroline finds herself relaxing back, though her breathing escalates further. Strangely, the heart monitor stutters to life. Slow waves move across the screen in red. "Caroline, it's okay. I couldn't do anything about the ambulance, but Stefan is here and he's Compelling everyone that's seen you or tended to you. Everything's fine."

 _Everything's fine_. 

Nothing is fine. Snatching her hand from his, Caroline stares at the blond man.

"Who"—she gasps, her throat dry. Clearing it with a cough, she begins again, "Who are you?"

 

*** * ***

Outside the room in which she has been sleeping for the past week, Caroline hears someone pacing the hall. She knows it is the one called Stefan. He is outside of her temporary room most of the time, walking back and forth. She assumes it is to keep an eye on her. To stop her from running away like she desperately wants to. She despises being locked away like this by strangers. But they keep telling her it is for her own good. That they need her to stay so they can fix whatever has happened to her, or reverse whatever it is that has caused her memories to vanish like smoke through the air. 

_(What? Caroline, don't play games with me. You know who I am._

_I don't. How do you know my name?)_

He is speaking to someone, but she only hears a muffled voice responding to him. He must be on the phone. 

She sits on the lavish bed decorated with lavish gold and red pillows hugging her knees to her chest, listening to Stefan's conversation. 

"We don't know what's happening," he says. "Have you ever heard of anything like this before?"

Caroline focuses her enhanced hearing, trying to pick up on what the other person says. 

"Have I ever heard of a vampire losing their memory before? No. Before you phoned I would have said it was impossible." Another man. He's English by the sound of it, and angry. 

"Well," Stefan sighs, "what the hell do we do?"

"What have you tried already?"

They have tried so many things. _They_ —the people who say they are her friends. Her best friends, her ex-lovers, her ex-enemies. There is a Bonnie, a Matt, a Damon. Stefan controls all of their movements. He has taken charge of the efforts to restore her lost mind. He gave her a group of journals with her childhood signature at the end of each page. He showed her around the home in which she once lived with her mother. 

Her mother. Stefan took Caroline to her snow-covered grave. But how does one mourn a person they don't remember? 

_(How did she die?_

_Cancer. She, uh, she didn't suffer._

_I don't believe you. We all suffer.)_

Each of the people claiming to be members of her inner circle shared stories of their lives together. Already, she has taken a disliking to the raven-haired Damon. His icy eyes hide darkness. She senses it rolling off of him each time he looks her way. 

None of their techniques have worked. All she knows of herself is her name and her status as a vampire. Stefan is at his wit's end. She has seen him wandering the vast Salvatore House, pulling at his hair, ensnared in thought. 

"And none of them have worked?"

"None," Stefan says, strained. "She's aware of various things, like her name. And she knows she's a vampire. But everything else is just . . . gone."

"Everything?" The man on the phone . . . his voice sounds as though it is splintering. As though  _he_ is splintering, cracking in two, four. Ten. But he clears his throat, and when he next speaks all traces of the brokenness have disappeared. "I'll be there soon, Stefan. I'll do what I can to help."

"You could never stay away from her, could you?" Stefan says.

"Don't be ridiculous," the man says. "I would be a fool not to come. A vampire suffering from amnesia. It sounds like it's come straight out of a badly written gothic novel."

"So, this has nothing to do with your history with her?" 

"Nothing," the man grits, all of that anger stuffed into the word. 

Caroline stops listening. 

 _History_? 

Whoever is on the other line, whoever is so full of bitterness, is another part of her unknown story. 

_(She went through the windshield. Maybe it's some form of a concussion?_

_But she's a vampire. She's supposed to be impervious to head trauma. To any trauma._

_Unless it involves a wooden stake._

_You're not helping.)_

Sliding off of the bed, Caroline's feet touch down on the floorboards and she walks around the room until she reaches the solitary window. She is on the second floor of the house facing the front garden. Only it isn't a garden. It is a roundabout with some trees. Everything is coated in powdery snow. It is almost as if she has awoken in some fairytale set in an eternal winter. And as she has no recollection of her life, perhaps this much is true. 

The blond enigma presses her hand to the glass. Her unnecessary breaths fog up her view of the road that stretches out past the line of bald, white trees. A week ago, a group of people took her to this place and made her vow to not leave until they had mended her, and all she has wanted to do since they locked the door on her is run. Escape. She badly wishes to flee this castle like the trapped princess these people have made her out to be. 

A soft knock on the door tears Caroline away from the window. The muted, ancient decor of the room is such a startling contrast to the brightness of the snow outside. 

"Yes?" she calls. 

"It's me," says Matt. "Uh, it's Matt."

She smiles for the first time all week. Matt is her favourite of the group. "You can come in, Matt."

The doorknob rotates and Matt pushes inside, shutting the door behind him. He remains across the room, his pink lips pulled to the sides in a worried smile. "How are you feeling this morning?"

Crossing her arms beneath her breast, Caroline shrugs. "Confused," she says. 

"Yeah. I bet. We're all a little confused, too. Though, you're probably more confused than us."

"Probably," she agrees. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?" she asks when Matt doesn't respond right away. 

His blue eyes—so different a shade than Damon's; his eyes are like the ocean on a clear day—widen. "Yes, I do have something I want to tell you," he says, moving further into the room. 

Caroline stays where she is. Matt stops when he is a few feet from her, like his body won't allow him to go any further. Or maybe she is projecting a forcefield around herself. 

"What is it?" Caroline asks. 

Matt takes a moment to gather the right words. She sees him flip through his options. "Someone," he says, "is coming to help us. To, uh, to help you. He's a vampire, too. And he's also a werewolf, not that that's important. The important thing is he will hopefully know what has happened, and he will hopefully know how to get your memories back."

She knew this, of course. 

 _History_. 

"Do you trust this man?" she inquires, recognising the apprehensive look on Matt's face. 

"It doesn't matter," he says. "You trust him."

What does that mean,  _she trusts him_? To her, now, it means absolutely nothing. Her judgement prior to the accident could have been completely flawed.  _She_ could have been completely flawed. 

"I know it doesn't sound like much, but believe me," Matt says, stepping over her forcefield. She looks up at him, begging her brain to find any previous images of this man's handsome face. "You trusting Klaus . . . it means everything."

 _Klaus_. 

Caroline's eyes glaze over at the sound of that name. She stares at Matt, but another takes his place.

( _Are you going to kill me_?

 _On your birthday_?  _Do you really think that low of me_?

 _Yes_.)

( _Just to be clear, I'm too smart to be seduced by you_.

 _Well . . . that's why I like you_.)

"Klaus. . . ." She says the name slow, feeling it around in her mouth. Her tongue is dry. Shaking her head, Matt returns to his spot in front of her.

"Yeah. Well, actually his name is  _Niklaus_ , but I don't know anyone that's ever called him that."

Caroline wants to say something, but too many words are sounding off in her head for her to form a sentence.

And it doesn't matter. Matt leaves her on that note, not giving her a chance to ask anymore questions. 

*** * ***

( _Would you ever take it_?

 _Now, why would I want to cure myself of being the most powerful creature on the planet_?

 _So, there's not one single moment in your whole life that you wanted to be human_?) 

It has been happening all day. Flashes of moments—they feel so much like memories, but she is not sure—continually filtering through her skull. They play in the room as if her eyes are a projector. She sees herself standing or sitting or dancing with a faceless man. His voice brings her calm in this mad time, though there is constantly a rumble in his words. It's like a warning to whoever is listening that he could strike them down at any moment. 

Whenever she thinks of that name— _Klaus_ —another candle is set alight in her mind, and by the time she hears the front door to the Salvatore House open and Stefan welcome inside a visitor, her brain is on fire. 

Hurried footfalls climb the staircase. Caroline braces for impact, not shocked in the slightest when the door opens with no forewarning. 

He stops dead in the doorway. 

 _Dead_. _Ha_. 

Behind him, Stefan comically comes to a skidding halt, unprepared for the sudden ceasing of movement. 

Sitting upright on the bed, she stares wildly at the man standing with only one foot over the threshold. 

He wears all black, a complete contrast to the white gown Stefan pulled out for her.

 _Klaus_.

She says his name, "Klaus," and it feels like fresh, warm blood dripping over her parched lips. 

"Caroline," he says back, twisting his head, his heavy brow knotting. 

And then her head is overflowing with those moments:

( _I know that you're in love with me_.)

( _I want your confession_.)

( _Yes_ , _I cover our connection with hostility because yes, I hate myself for the truth. So if you promise to walk away like you said and never come back, then, yes I will be honest with you. I will be honest with you about what I want_.

 _I will walk away. And I will never come back. I promise_.

 _Good_.)

( _He is your first love. I intend to be your last. However long it takes_.)

( _This is stupid. We shouldn't be doing this again_.

 _You're the one who phoned me, love_.

 _Don't rub it in_.)

( _I don't want you to promise you won't come back_.

 _What do you want, then_?

 _For you to come back_.)

"Caroline!" She hears him cry as her eyelids convulse. He is on the bed with her, holding her, shaking her. "Caroline. Come on, wake up," he says as she drifts like an orange-flame snowflake. 

*** * ***

His voice is inside of her head as she comes awake. Exhausted—she feels like she is recovering from direct sunlight exposure—she keeps her eyes closed and listens to him speak. 

"He walked on the track," he whispers. "And he was surprised to learn how certain he suddenly was of a single fact he could not prove. Once, long ago, Clarisse had walked here, where he was walking now. . ."

She remains still on the comfortable bed, wondering distractedly what time it is. He should be gone soon. New Orleans will start missing him before too long. But she does love when he reads to her. He does it every year after they are completely spent. Naked and covered in a sheen, they will lay side by side as he recites from memory hundreds' of pages worth of material. He has libraries in his head, she swears. He is a true Guy Montag. 

It is then that Caroline notices how far away he sounds. How bright the room is beyond her closed eyes compared to how dark it usually is when Klaus takes the time to read aloud. 

She cracks her eyelids. For a brief moment, everything around her is blurred, and as the light filters past the slits of her eyes, her head starts pulsing. Steadily, the room comes into focus. Only it isn't her room. Klaus sits metres from the large bed in an old, creaking rocking chair, an actual book in his hands. She sees his eyes drift over the pages of the short novel. A cursory glance at her surroundings tells her she is at the Salvatore House. Not only she, but  _Klaus_ is here, too.

She has time travelled. It is the only explanation. She has moved somehow into the past. Or, perhaps the last few years have been intricate hallucinations brought about by a vicious werewolf bite, and she is finally awakening from a venom-induced coma. 

"You're awake."

Caroline's eyes, fully opened now, drift to Klaus. His words are casual, but she hears the slight tremor vibrating in his throat. He has been worried. _Terrified_ , even. 

"What's happened?" she asks, searching her mind for an explanation. She remembers him coming to her. Remembers his mouth on hers. 

The rose. 

He had left already, the morning of Valentine's Day, and she had locked herself in her room until Matt came to her. He wanted to take her to the Grill. Wanted to take her away from her pain.

Klaus puts the book on the floor and stands, looking down at her as he had done the evening of her birthday. Then, his dark eyes were sympathetic and mischievous. Now, they are warm and concerned. Loving. Careful not to land on her, Klaus sits beside her on the bed. She lifts herself up, head still pounding. 

"You were in an accident," he says, frowning. "Do you remember. . .?"

"I remember being in the truck with Matt," she says. "There had been a crash because of the ice."

He smiles at her. One of those smiles she is sure only she is privy to. It brings out his dimples. Extending his right arm, Klaus gently cradles her cheek. She knows it is her mind playing tricks on her, but she feels the warmth of his skin seep inside of her and the ache in her mind starts to recede. She presses into his touch.

"The human, Matt," Klaus says, "told me that once the remnants of the first crash had been cleared away, a car coming the opposite way collided with his truck. You were wearing your seatbelt, but I suppose due to your superhuman strength, and the force of the impact, you were torn free. You were badly scraped up."

"Klaus. . . ." Caroline catches the tremble of his lips and it is unsettling. "What day is it?" 

"It's the 22nd of February," he says, casting his eyes downward. He lets go of her cheek, taking her balled fist instead. He strokes her knuckles. "Something happened that caused some form of memory loss. Your  _friends_ didn't know what to do, so they called me." His gaze returns to hers. He is concerned about her response to the news.

She waits, silent, as the information Klaus has given her echoes throughout her blazing mind. "What happened when you showed up?" 

"Well," he says, taking the opportunity to seize her hand when she unclenches her fingers, "you remembered."

It makes sense. Not really, nothing about this situation makes any semblance of sense, but she will tell herself it makes sense. Because of course Klaus Mikaelson, the feared Original hybrid whose death toll rises each day and whose enemies swear has no room in his cold, dead heart for a spot of love, is the one capable of reawakening her dormant memories. 

"And do they know?" she asks.

He understands. "I think," he says, "they suspect, but nobody has been brave enough to confront me."

Caroline's mouth twists up in a sardonic smile. "I believe it," she says. "Klaus, what happens now?"

"What do you mean?"

"We've broken our rule," she says. Then, "I'm sorry for scaring you."

Klaus leans forward, knocking their foreheads together. He glides his palms up and down her arms, his eyes closed. His breaths roam across her face. "It was a silly rule to begin with," he says, ignoring her apology.

But he's right. It was a silly rule.

She tells him. "Yeah, it was."

"Then it's up to you," he says.

"What's up to me?"

His stormy ocean eyes slip open. His hands clutch her shoulders. His fingers press deep into her flesh, and if she were not a half-dead creature incapable of bruising, his rough hold would have left marks. "What happens next," he says. "It's up to you."

Caroline stares at him wondrously. She tilts her head to one side before daringly pressing her lips to Klaus's. It is a short kiss, but it is enough, always enough, to breathe new life in Caroline. 

Outside the room, the pair hear groups of footsteps and quickly separate. Klaus speeds to the rocking chair. Caroline finds her way beneath the covers. The shattered group of friends she once could not imagine her life without filter into the room. They marvel at her recovery. Matt apologises countless times for a situation over which he had no control. Bonnie explains how worried she was. Damon stands like a demon in the doorway as Stefan talks with Klaus. 

While her friends all talk at once, Caroline looks at Klaus. His concentration flits between her and Stefan, and every time their eyes meet, she is awash with certainty. When the fascination surrounding her dies down, she knows what will happen next. 

*** * ***

_I can't wait to meet you_

**Author's Note:**

> Wear your seat belts, kids!


End file.
